He Can't Fall in Love
by paynesgrey
Summary: She is becoming his greatest weakness, and he can feel it within his bones. Felicity x Oliver. Spoilers for "State v. Queen". Season 2. One-shot.


AN: Written after the latest Arrow episode "State v. Queen". One-shot. Spoilers.

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**He Can't Fall In Love**

He can't fall in love with her, not when she's looking at him with those eyes of unconditional trust and loyalty. He can't do it. Oliver can't let himself fall into those traps.

Felicity Smoak can't become his weakness. She can't become the one thing the bad guys can use to bring him down.

He won't bend to his feelings, the way they scream at him when Felicity saves him, over and over again. She may not fight, or handle a weapon, or have a dark past where she burns for vengeance. But she rescues him with her cleverness, her kindness and her level head. He doesn't want her fighting anyway; she's fresh and pure and he'll be damned if she changes any of her true self for him.

Yet, she is changing, for him and for herself. He reads her well, that hope in her eyes when he saves the city from another rising villain. He's the reason she's with him, sacrificing her personal life to spend late nights with him, monitoring the city and using her brilliance to aid him in his fight.

But Oliver can't care for her.

She wants him to, and he knows she cares for him more than it's safe. Every day she cracks away pieces of him with that smile, with those tears, with the determination in her voice as she unearths another puzzling code.

She can't be important to him, and as much as he tries to fight it, it may be the one battle that he cannot win.

Oliver still smells the island around him when he wakes up in the morning. He still feels the ache in his scars and the humidity of that forest in his bones. Lately, Oliver has woken up to a different scent, the grit of the city, the environment of his lair, and the faint scent of Felicity's perfume.

Has he really spent that much time with her that he knows her so well? The island taught him to be resourceful, deadly, and cunning. He could track anyone, read any body language and speak many tongues. But can he really keep a scent like that with him every day?

This is why cannot love her. He cannot let her settle in his bones like the air of the island. He cannot get used to her and cherish her smiles as he once did (naively) with Shado.

Felicity frightens him with her comfort. She cries for him, and when he wipes away her tears, he can see through her. She loves him too much, and he'd rather take the sting of Malcolm's arrows, or the poisonous curse of the Count's drug than give in to what is happening between them.

Felicity's love, however, proves the most dangerous pain he will ever endure.

"You deserve so much better than her," she tells him, and he can see pain etching into the hopeful face of his dear friend, turning it sour and shamed.

He can't have her, not with the work he does, and not with the enemies waiting for him in the shadows. His past always seems to catch up with him, taking advantage of his gifts in the present and using them to draw him out, to pour salt in his weaknesses.

The phone call from the Count proves that. How many times has Felicity put herself in danger because of him?

And here they find danger in the room where she reluctantly serves him coffee, or makes sour faces at him when Isabel slithers into the room (she once used that term, Oliver remembers). All their moments of normalcy, a cover, to play out into their meetings in the night.

He almost loses her. She's shaking when he finds her, helpless and afraid. She tries to keep her fear from his gaze, but she's unsuccessful. She's not cut out for this, but Oliver knows his Girl Wednesday (or was it Friday?) would put her neck out for him anyway. She's stubborn enough, and even if he'd been there to tell her no, she'd still be here, trapped under the Count's mercy.

"_You can't fall in love with her,"_ a voice in his head is telling him. It sounds like the fake voice he uses as the vigilante, a part of himself that defines his choice to be alone, to protect everyone in the city, not just Felicity Smoak.

The needles kiss her neck and she's weeping, cries gasping from her lips. He's frozen in a second, and there is only one choice. He knows Tommy would forgive him. For someone, he cares about, Tommy would forgive him.

Arrows fly, and fresh blood hits the air. Glass crashes, and Oliver resolves to his fate - not that he's a killer, but that he's her _savior_, and Felicity is alive, unscathed, and his precious friend is out of harm's way once more.

He holds her, and she's still shaking, and he can't think of much to say. He lets her weep, and his heart sinks, falling further into the scent of her, the sound of her breath, and the surety of her tears.

She's so close to him - where she belongs, and now, she's safe again.

And Death finally finds the Count at his hands. Even beyond his promise to Tommy, Oliver has no regrets. As long as Felicity is alive, he feels no guilt.

"_Because of the life I lead, I think that it's better I not be with someone I could really care about,"_ he remembers telling her, and he'd watched the way her face fell, and how he'd witnessed a breaking heart, not knowing that he'd felt it as well.

He's killed someone for her, and it weighs on her. He should know better. It's Felicity after all. She doesn't want to be responsible. She doesn't want to be the damsel in this play, able to bring out his weakness and sway his ideals. She's his friend, his partner in this mission, but to be the reason he gives up on his promise to Tommy? He can see that this bothers her, but Oliver can't seem to be bothered at all. Yes, he went back on his promise just this one time… but it was all for her.

He holds her hand and there's warmth. Not the sticky, humid heat of the island, but inner warmth from the touch of her, the smell of her, and the look in her eyes that wounds him.

The computers sleep in their lair and Felicity and Diggle go home. Oliver stays around a little longer, getting in his last push-ups and chin-ups. He knows he has to leave soon; his family is waiting for him while his mother settles back into their house.

Before he goes home, he swings around to Felicity's apartment to make sure she's okay. He needs to know she's holding up well, that she isn't still crying from what happened with the Count.

In her window, he watches as she yawns, puts away her laptop and tucks herself into bed. She picks up a beige teddy bear in a green cape, straightens its green hood and hugs it. Oliver sees a single tear fall down her cheek before she shuts the lights off.

No, he shouldn't fall in love with Felicity Smoak. He can't. It isn't right, and he isn't ready to put her in that much danger.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

He isn't ready to fall to his greatest weakness, but he knows that deep in his bones, he already has.

END


End file.
